


Found In Sunlight

by verulam (krynon)



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bats, Disabled Character, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Penguins, Zoo-keepers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4199352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Zoo-keeper AU, in which Rhys is a small mammal expert and Jack is a reptile handler (but, more importantly, an asshole.)<br/>...<br/>""Behold!" He makes a dramatic gesture, pauses for effect. "The cuddlebat!"<br/>Rhys looks at him sardonically. "Really? Cuddlebat?"<br/>Jack grins at him. "What, I'm not allowed to have fun with it?" He scritches a finger up and down the bat's chin. "Lookit how cute he is, look! Adorable. Adorable and probably a blood-sucker.""</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found In Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Hhhheeeeres a domestic zoo-keeper au that nobody asked for because writing make dirt look clean is making me _crave_ it.  
>  There may be another chapter of this with porn-based fun. Let me know if you want to see porn that is essentially just Jack bragging about his eight mile dick and Rhys being sassy at him.  
> Anyway, here's the [cuddlebat.](https://speakupforthevoiceless.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/hong1.jpg)

They're nearly done with the main rounds, focused on the bat enclosure. It's a little corner of the zoo, nothing compared to the wide reaches of Vasquez's hunting dogs or Janey's huge space for the elephants. But they've nearly done and there's a new bat- a Honduran White.

They're adorable, tiny and fluffy with little yellow ears and noses, only a few inches across, so Jack and Rhys drop in to shove food into the cages and to be honest, just to fawn over it. They were _cute._

Rhys had been busy trading shaded insults with Vasquez at the wild dog enclosure when they'd arrived, so he hasn't seen it yet. Jack, of course, had made sure to be around: a 'flair' for the dramatic barely began to cover it, and he demands that Rhys shut his eyes as he takes the little bat from its den and places it in Rhys' hand. It's tiny, warm and sweet as Jack plops it down with surprisingly gentle hands.

He always surprised Rhys, like that. Jack was rough, in all senses of the word, his big hands _especially_ included. But he had a soft spot for animals, which explained the job, and another one for Rhys, which explained the relationship, and the touch that lingers a little too long on his knuckles.

"Behold!" Jack makes a dramatic gesture, pauses for effect. God, what an asshole. "The cuddlebat!"

Rhys looks at him sardonically. "Really?" It is not acuddlebat. It's the little Honduran White, tiny and peering up inside his fingers with little beady eyes. It's white, fluffy and it is undoubtedly cute, but... " _Cuddlebat?"_

Jack grins at him. "What, I'm not allowed to have fun with it?" He scritches a finger up and down the bat's chin. "Lookit how cute he is, look! _Adorable_. Adorable and probably a bloodsucker." Rhys frowns because no, it was _not_ a bloodsucker, but doesn't retort.

If Jack had decided to call the little thing cuddlebat then cuddlebat it was, lest Rhys somehow end up gaining 'cuddlebat' or probably 'cuddlerhys' as a nickname himself, as a surrogate for whatever the bat _would_ end up being called.

Jack's habit of nicknames was endearing when it was animals and just between them, slightly less so when the whole damn park got a hold of it. Vasquez, an asshole that helped keep the hyenas and wild dogs and made Rhys' life as difficult as possible wherever he could but couldn't lay a _finger_ on Jack, had overheard them bickering over the rodents.

'Mr. Mole' had stuck for _weeks_.

"Aww, he's got a little idiotface. Kinda reminds me of you, actually, l'il yellow idiot." One arm slung back against the fence of an enclosure, Jack peers at its face as Rhys holds the little bat steady.

"What does that even mean?" He mumbles, trying not to disturb the 'cuddlebat'. Jack barely glances up, just a flick of the eyes before he starts to pet it again.

"You wear yellow, the bat's got yellow... Bits."

"Jack, you wear yellow too. It's the _uniform_." Rhys sighs, swats his metal hand at him, and is very pointedly not delicate about it. If Rhys had nicknamed one of Jack's lizards, Jack would _never_  let it catch on, not like 'cuddlebat' was now _bound_ to do. "Besides, it's white. Only its ears and legs are yellow. And it isn't a cuddlebat, it's a Honduran White Bat. Or," he pulls a delibstately over-smug face and grimaces, "Ectophylla Alba."

Jack glances up properly this time, a grin and something warm in his face. "And his nose is yellow too, dumdum, you're meant to be the expert. Lookit his little nose! He's so cute, li'l friggin' _puff-ball_!" he straightens up, offers a hand to take the bat from Rhys. It sits mostly still as it moves from palm to palm, and Jack pops it back in the enclosure with its food. "Honestly, Rhysie, you'd think _I_ was the bat expert."

Rhys snorts and glances across at him as they start off through the zoo. "What, 'cause you mentioned the nose and I didn't? Yeah. _Expert_."

It was lunchtime at the park, so the animals were hungry and, as Jack was quick to point out, equally as cute when they were disgruntled as they were otherwise. Rhys and Jack were on food duty for the bats and small mammals: Since they finished pretty quickly, 'cuddlebat' aside, it's them that gets put on oddjob duty.

Despite the fact that Rhys was a small mammal expert and was far more qualified than _Jack_ , who was a reptile handler, they were nearly always paired together on shifts, an unsubtle pattern that's been going on for weeks now. Fiona was a savvy boss and knew very well that they were good performers: after a quite memorable chance pairing and a penguinfeeding session, they'd been paired together ever since. Rhys' old partner Vaughn, abother reptile handler that Rhys had known _forever_ , had been paired up with another old friend of his, Yvette, instead, and it all works out just about as well as he could have hoped.

He and Jack entertain crowds and feed stuff, Vaughn and Yvette do all of the actual work- and if he doesn't get to use those small mammal qualifications he spent so long getting, then so be it. Rhys _loved_  to entertain, and as it turned out, so did Jack.

"'Sides," Rhys retorts after a pause. "You're meant to be a reptile expert, and you forgot the difference between an alligator and a crocodile last week."

Jack bats his eyelashes at him as they round the corner into the penguin enclosure. "Only because I was lost in your _beautiful eyes._ "He cackles when Rhys shoots him a deadpan look and passes him a bucket of fish before leaning down to grab a hose pipe. Rhys looks very pointedly at his ass, and has to hold back a giggle as Jack flounces around.

"Yeah," Rhys replies dryly. " _Sure_. My eyes. Not the pretty customers in shorts falling over themselves for you at the window." They're both grinning as they step into the enclosure.

Most of the penguins were out, already swooping through the water and playing to a clearly enamoured crowd; Jack manages to squeeze in a few more muttered comments before they have to start, smiling as he hoses down the walkway.

" _Rhysie, baby,_ you wound me," aquick pause to finish clearing the dirt and mess off of their standing spots, and a quick quip of "let's be quick here, cupcake, there's a bitchy bearded dragon with my name on him," And then they're off, playing to the crowd with grins to each other and a few buckets each.

Rhys always starts, driving the penguins towards him with the bucket gripped hard in the hand of his prosthetic arm and a smile on his face for the customers. The penguins were cooperating today too, which helped; sometimes some of them ignored the food completely to bother at the glass instead, ruining the spectacle of the whole group moving as one.

If they have names, Rhys doesn't know them, but he finds himself weirdly attached to them all anyway. He and Jack don't get put on penguins or aquatics often, but it was always fun when they did, partly because Rhys got to start the show and partly because it was honestly _fun_ to watch them dart and grab at fish.

When he meets Jack's eyes, and the other man starts to throw fish as well, dividing the mob into two, he makes sure to watch the looks on the crowd's faces.

He's as inordinately pleased as always when they clap.

Jack tosses fish from the other end of the cage, perched up on the wall of the enclosure so they have to waddle up for their food, darting forward and honking with delight as they see him.

The penguins _love_ Jack.

(Rhys, as Jack smiles at him and chucks a fish so dangerously near to Rhys' feet that he has to skitter backwards to avoid the incoming bird, thinks he might love Jack a little bit, too.)

It goes on like that for a while, taking it in long turns to launch fish left and right, but pretty quick the birds are getting kind of disgruntled with the game. They're loud, honking, and brave enough to hop right up to Jack and demand the fish out of the bucket.

Jack, as always, is being an _asshole_ and keeps tempting them, fauxthrowing as if they're little black, clumsy dogs. Rhys' penguins do nothing of the sort, obedient and running exactly where he wants them to, and he preens and shows off at the way they follow his every move then points the crowd over to the other corner, and laughs with them as Jack has to hop to avoid the snap of a beak.

Before long the fervour of Jack's little gang seems to spread to his penguins too, though, and together they both start throwing the fish in a volley across the enclosure.

They come dangerously close to hitting each other more than once, and have to dart away at the very last second. The crowd _loves_ it, laughing along like it's a scripted comedy with Jack and Rhys as the stars.

When the feeding is finished and their buckets (and their _second_ buckets) are empty, they wave to the dispersing crowd, and both laugh when they get a few waves back.

"I could have been an actor, you know," says Jack, smiling widely as he yanks off his plastic apron and hangs it up on a hook.

"So could I," Rhys undoes his with one hand, letting the prosthetic sit at his side, but Jack waits like he always does- even if he _does_  glance at his watch more than once. "I could be a comedy star, we could be a double act."

Jack snorts. "Hardly. I'd be a brilliant porn actor, though." They snigger at eachother, Rhys' eyebrows raised high and Jack's eyebrows waggling, before Rhys swats at him and finally gets the apron off over his head. "'Sides, you're too pretty for comedy, cupcake."

"So are you," says Rhys, smiling out of the corner of his mouth as they step back out of the enclosure. "And you'd be a terrible porn star, you know it."

"Hey," Jack draws them both to a sharp stop, hands on his shoulders and voice deadpan. "Rhys, that isn't cool." And Rhys almost feels _bad_ about it before Jack carries on. "I will have you know that my dick is eight miles long and is classed as a wonder in several states."

Rhys swats at him again, smiles, and rolls easy with it as Jack moves in for a kiss. "Your dick," he mumbles against Jack's lips, "is not _nearly_ eight miles long, you liar." Jack is hard and strong against him, arms at his shoulders and pushing him back into a wall.

Jack grins into it, leans and kisses deeper. "I will have you know that I am packing _at least_ that." A pause for breath and then Jack's tongue is swirling in his mouth. "Probably more."

Rhys pushes him back, hands on his shoulders and a thoroughly unimpressed look on his face. "Jack, only one of us here has ever sucked that dick, and I can _promise_ you that it isn't eight miles long."

Jack's eyes go dark and sparkle with something like mischief. "Well," he says, leans back into Rhys' space and nips at his neck. "How about you check again tonight?"

Rhys swallows back a gulp that he knows Jack can see, and then Jack is grabbing him by the arm, pulling him away from the wall before letting go and scampering off.

"C'mon, pumpkin. I've got reptiles to pamper." Jack grins at Rhys' flushed face, snickering at his scowl as he runs off.

Wow. What an _asshole_.

(So what if Rhys is going to check the size again, just to be sure that it wasn't bigger than a house. You know, he had to be certain. It wasn't like he liked Jack's dick or anything, no, _haha_ , not like he had a thing about 8 miles long for _anything_ attached to Jack.)

When Jack rounds the corner and Rhys finds himself staring at the spot that his ass had been, Rhys berates himself.

Falling in love with a coworker was a problem. Falling in love with an   _asshole_ coworker was even _worse_.

Still, he assures himself as he picks himself up and jogs after Jack. It could have been worse.

Jack could have been his _boss_ , or something.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to fully confirm that in this AU Jack names all of his lizards with a "butt" prefix. His favourite by far is "butt-dragon."  
> Find me at: verulamion.tumblr.com <3


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